“I think we’re in very good shape for the future,” Thorpe said.
The NASA official who oversees all of the agency’s astrophysics missions is Shawn Domagal-Goldman. Despite the White House’s attempt to end NASA’s contribution to the LISA mission, the ESA’s 2026 budget passed by Congress and subsequently signed by President Trump was intended to signal Washington’s support for the project.
“Something this complex is always a challenge, but that is why it is important that we reaffirm our commitment with the resources available to us in the fiscal year 2026 budget proposal,” Domagal-Goldman said. “As long as we have a permanent solution or something at our current funding levels, we will maintain our commitment to the LISA mission.”
“I’m really excited about that because when LISA launches, it will answer some of these other big questions that you can only answer with a space-based gravitational wave observatory,” he said.
LISA’s scientific activities include studying the origins of black holes and the formation of galaxies. According to NASA, it could potentially be sensitive enough to detect gravitational waves created shortly after the Big Bang, which would allow scientists to test theories about the birth of our universe.
“These are propagating disturbances in spacetime,” Thorpe said of gravitational waves. “They can carry energy. They can carry momentum, and I think they’re the most interesting thing for astronomers because they can carry information about the systems that create them, and we can use them to understand the universe.”
Physicists will use LISA’s discoveries to test Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Some of the most catastrophic events in the cosmos, such as supermassive black hole mergers, should produce a very specific gravitational wave signature, according to general relativity. LISA will be more sensitive to low-frequency gravitational waves than ground-based observatories like LIGO, which is the type of waves scientists expect from the most massive black holes.
